Carrico’s ‘Two Men Out’ Hits Home at Theatre Exchange

You expect first plays to err on the side of personal indulgence, especially when the subject matter involves booze and the family. But you seldom see a playwright’s maiden effort sliced into the vigorous shape of Tom Carrico’s “Two Men Out, Runner on Third” at Theatre Exchange.

This four-character drama, in which a grieving father and one of his two sons drink themselves into an ugly stupor over a two-day drunk, is an uncompromising X-ray of a self-destructive family in which booze pours like water from the family well.

The title signals the dilemma: The old man and one son have already been tagged out but there’s a runner on third, the younger baseball-playing son, who’s fighting to break away with his identity intact. The result is a strong first play by Carrico, notable for the force of its dialogue and a sculptured dramatic structure that avoids melodrama.

The catalyst for the gathering storm is the death of the mother, whom we never see but whose presence as the long-suffering spouse hovers over this warring household. There are glimmers of Arthur Miller in the festering father-son relationships.

Director Neal Weaver expertly guides his players through their beer-and-Jim Beam-drenched odyssey. In the early part of the mother’s wake, you hardly notice the presence of alcohol in the family living room (a perfectly modest, tacky abode designed by Michael Larkins). Nobody’s falling down drunk, but then--with a start--you catch the understated image of the father’s pants, which have become wet with urine. Characters don’t ruminate about the bottle. Drinking is a given.

As the father, Jim Kier deftly portrays a confused, possessive dad trying to hang on to his last son by ridiculing the boy’s dreams of being a ballplayer. That youth, the hope of the play and seemingly the playwright’s alter ego, is rendered with a fervent, lyrical touch by Bill Conroy. As the other son, an alcoholic lawyer, Tom Willet imperceptibly segues from sobriety to oblivion, passing out in a trash bin. A minor character, a baseball scout played by William Barker, jauntily enlivens the action.

At 11855 Hart St., North Hollywood; Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m.; through May 12. $10. (213) 876-2236.

Early Vietnam-Era Drama of ‘The Watering Place’

The home as a battlefield is also the dark subject of “The Watering Place” at the Powerhouse, a production notable for vivid direction by Dallas Vogeler and a scabrous, pugnacious performance by George Murdock, who has a roaring time telling a Vietnam vet that “war isn’t war unless you’re killing Krauts.”

This early Vietnam-era play, which dramatizes a soldier’s visit to his dead buddy’s neurotic family, opened and closed after one performance on Broadway in 1969. Though writer Lyle (“Orphans”) Kessler has revised and cut it, it’s watchable primarily because of a strong cast.

The theme that war is bred in the home seems pretentious, and there’s no character to root for. Bobbi Holtzman’s demented mother, Chris DeMartino’s self-serving Vietnam vet and Shannon Lee Avnsoe’s sexually accommodating, widowed sister-in-law are too insular to reflect any condition of 1960s America, let alone Vietnam.

There’s something macabre about the production, however, as if Harold Pinter were paying a visit to “The Addams Family.” Murdock has a field day, and production values, notably Patty Klawonn’s domestic set design, are first-rate.

At 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica; Thursdays through Saturdays; 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; through May 27. $12-$14. (213) 466-1767.

A Gathering of U.S. Expatriates in ‘Hotel’

The 60th anniversary production of Philip Barry’s seldom-staged “lost generation” play, “Hotel Universe,” is a fragile, beguiling experience at the Shepard Theatre Complex.

Barry’s drama of expatriate Americans gathered at a villa in the South of France was based on his friendship with Gerald and Sarah Murphy and their glittering life at Cap d’Antibes in the 1920s (the same setting that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tender Is the Night”). So it is an unusual pleasure to run into a production that dares tackle this bubble of a world on its own terms.

Freud was big in 1930, when the play opened on Broadway, and Barry dappled his eight characters, their post-World War faiths shaken, in psychological and even metaphysical analysis as they glide in angst about the starry terrace (a classy design by David G. Monroe).

Director J. P. Duffy has a keen ear and eye for the work’s delicate tone and most of the actors, coiffed and costumed in Flapper detail, capture the requisite soul-searching without hamming it up. Plays about the jaded rich are hard to do today. Especially convincing are Jo Ann Nelson, Paul Carter, M. J. Clemens, Addy Allison and Kilroy.

At 6474 Santa Monica Blvd. ; Friday, Saturday, 8 p.m. ; closes Sunday, 8 p.m. $15. (213) 466 - 1767.

Drama of Graffiti Artist in CalArts ‘Fall’

Years ago, productions from the CalArts theater department would make periodic sorties to Los Angeles, and it was always interesting to see what that campus was theatrically up to. Now we have CalArts once removed in “Fall” at the Matrix, an agonizing drama of an L.A. graffiti artist, with all the key creative hands recent CalArts graduates.

The group, playwright Geoffrey Thorne, director Douglas Rushkoff, star Morgan Rusler, and set designer Alexandra Rubinstein, captures an L.A. artistic subculture rife with raw energy and frayed nerves.

The downside is the overripe tone, the loose shape, the strident drunken bellowings of the artist-in-crisis (Rusler), and the failure of the otherwise gritty production, set in a dim loft, to marshal the relationships and the plot’s lovesick angle into an artful structure. But there’s a definable world presented here, and the promise of this group is palpable.

At 7657 Melrose Ave. ; Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. ; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. ; through May 26. $15. (213) 852-1445.

‘Eros at Twilight’ at Burbage Theatre

The numbing babble of gab in Jaime Meyer’s fanciful comedy “Eros at Twilight,” at the Burbage Theatre Ensemble, is a grueling ordeal.

Meyer’s idea about a man and woman (John Achorn and Melissa Converse) living in an abandoned lighthouse and searching for their Muses isn’t bad. And a couple of supporting turns are flavorful (Burke Byrnes’ Sterling Hayden-like adventurer and Susan Rome’s waitress-turned-mermaid). But the ramshackle production, the repetitious talk, director Gary Guidinger’s lack of buoyancy and frantic, inane pacing are distracting to the point of oblivion.

Aside from all this, the Burbage might consider a scrub down. It’s one of the drearier theaters in town.

At 2330 Sawtelle Blvd. ; Thursdays through Saturdays, 8:30 p.m. ; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. ; through June 10. $12-$14. (213) 478-0897.

Post-Apocalyptic ‘Strange Voyage’

Another exhausting play in another dreary venue, the Century City Playhouse, is the Burbage Theatre Ensemble’s Bare Bones production of a post-apocalyptic tragicomedy in two unrelenting acts called “Strange Voyage.”

Playwright Nitza Henig’s painful variation on “Waiting for Godot” is a test of the mettle of director Frederick Johntz. He can’t salvage this overwrought show but he cajoles some fetching Laurel and Hardy touches from performers Neal Lerner and Joseph McCarthy, who give the term “trouper” new meaning.

The dialogue becomes unbearable, by turns giddy and turgid and mind-bending. That’s eternity in the desert for you. The wasteland is briefly enlivened by a couple of screechy strangers (Louise Bitcon and Gail Shapiro). The world’s mad--do you hear? Mad.

At 10508 W. Pico Blvd., Monday through Wednesday, 8 p.m., through May 2. $5. (213) 839-3322.